"What on earth can they be doing?" she murmured. And when the long hour struck she arose with resolution and knocked at the door.
"Come in," said her father, irritably, "but don"t interrupt. William and I are engaged in a very important business transaction."
[Ill.u.s.tration: ]
V
SACHARISSA
_Treating of Certain Scientific Events Succeeding the Wedding Journey of William and Ethelinda_
Sacharissa took the chair. She knew nothing about parliamentary procedure; neither did her younger, married sister, Ethelinda, nor the recently acquired family brother-in-law, William Augustus Destyn.
"The meeting will come to order," said Sacharissa, and her brother-in-law reluctantly relinquished his new wife"s hand--all but one finger.
"Miss Chairman," he began, rising to his feet.
The chair recognized him and bit into a chocolate.
"I move that our society be known as The Green Mouse, Limited."
"Why limited?" asked Sacharissa.
"Why not?" replied her sister, warmly.
"Well, what does your young man mean by limited?"
"I suppose," said Linda, "that he means it is to be the limit. Don"t you, William?"
"Certainly," said Destyn, gravely; and the motion was put and carried.
"Rissa, dear!"
The chair casually recognized her younger sister.
"I propose that the object of this society be to make its members very, very wealthy."
The motion was carried; Linda picked up a sc.r.a.p of paper and began to figure up the possibility of a new touring car.
Then Destyn arose; the chair nodded to him and leaned back, playing a tattoo with her pencil tip against her snowy teeth.
He began in his easy, agreeable voice, looking across at his pretty wife:
"You know, dearest--and Sacharissa, over there, is also aware--that, in the course of my economical experiments in connection with your father"s Wireless Trust, I have accidentally discovered how to utilize certain brand-new currents of an extraordinary character."
Sacharissa"s expression became skeptical; Linda watched her husband in unfeigned admiration.
"These new and hitherto unsuspected currents," continued Destyn modestly, "are not electrical but psychical. Yet, like wireless currents, their flow eternally encircles the earth. These currents, I believe, have their origin in that great unknown force which, for lack of a better name, we call fate, or predestination. And I am convinced that by intercepting one of these currents it is possible to connect the subconscious personalities of two people of opposite s.e.x who, although ultimately destined for one another since the beginning of things, have, through successive incarnations, hitherto missed the final consummation-- marriage!--which was the purpose of their creation."
"Bill, dear," sighed Linda, "how exquisitely you explain the infinite."
"Fudge!" said Sacharissa; "go on, William."
"That"s all," said Destyn. "We agreed to put in a thousand dollars apiece for me to experiment with. I"ve perfected the instrument--here it is."
He drew from his waistcoat pocket a small, flat jeweler"s case and took out a delicate machine resembling the complicated interior of a watch.
"Now," he said, "with this tiny machine concealed in my waistcoat pocket, I walk up to any man and, by turning a screw like the stem of a watch, open the microscopical receiver. Into the receiver flow all psychical emanations from that unsuspicious citizen. The machine is charged, positively. Then I saunter up to some man, place the instrument on a table--like that--touch a lever. Do you see that hair wire of Rosium uncoil like a tentacle? It is searching, groping for the invisible, negative, psychical current which will carry its message."
"To whom?" asked Sacharissa.
"To the subconscious personality of the only woman for whom he was created, the only woman on earth whose psychic personality is properly attuned to intercept that wireless greeting and respond to it."
"How can you tell whether she responds?" asked Sacharissa, incredulously.
He pointed to the hair wire of Rosium:
"I watch that. The instant that the psychical current reaches and awakens her, crack!--a minute point of blue incandescence tips the tentacle. It"s done; psychical communication is established. And that man and that woman, wherever they may be on earth, surely, inexorably, will be drawn together, even from the uttermost corners of the world, to fulfill that for which they were destined since time began."
There was a semirespectful silence; Linda looked at the little jewel-like machine with a slight shudder; Sacharissa shrugged her young shoulders.
"How much of this," said she, "is theory and how much is fact?--for, William, you always were something of a poet."
"I don"t know. A month ago I tried it on your father"s footman, and in a week he"d married a perfectly strange parlor maid."
"Oh, they do such things, anyway," observed Sacharissa, and added, unconvinced: "Did that tentacle burn blue?"
"It certainly did," said Destyn.
Linda murmured: "I believe in it. Let"s issue stock."
"To issue stock is one thing," said Destyn, "to get people to buy it is another. You and I may believe in Green Mouse, Limited, but the rest of the world is always from beyond the Mississippi."
"The thing to do," said Linda, "is to prove your theory by practicing on people. They may not like the idea, but they"ll be so grateful, when happily and unexpectedly married, that they"ll buy stock."
"Or give us testimonials," added Sacharissa, "that their bliss was entirely due to a single dose of Green Mouse, Limited."
"Don"t be flippant," said Linda. "Think what William"s invention means to the world! Think of the time it will save young men barking up wrong trees! Think of the trouble saved--no more doubt, no timidity, no hesitation, no speculation, no opposition from parents."
"Any of our clients," added Destyn, "can be instantly switched on to a private psychical current which will clinch the only girl in the world.
Engagements will be superfluous; those two simply can"t get away from each other."
"If that were true," observed Sacharissa, "it would be most unpleasant.
There would be no fun in it. However," she added, smiling, "I don"t believe in your theory or your machine, William. It would take more than that combination to make me marry anybody."